


cashmere

by ruruka



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: future foundation canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 13:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14672364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruruka/pseuds/ruruka
Summary: togami and kirigiri go on a mission together.





	cashmere

a quick trip, hardly a mission at all. a brisk skip over to check the status of a nearby city, thought mainly vacant, just down the coast just an hour's drive one way. it'll be over before you know it, had been one label he'd especially detested, softened hardly in its lip kiss punctuation. because a thursday overnight in a crash crunched nowhere land is nothing worthy of saliva down the chin and fork tongs quaking, and neither does the silver tremble to know he's to be accompanied by a second place medalist in haughty bitchitis (the gold's burning his palm, of course). his eye to soles rival through trauma's bite. his boyfriend's best friend that he tolerates, and would never attest to her being his own, to being the closest to family he's ever had even before hellfire took the skies, to very much liking the way she irons even if he says he can do better.

(he can, but the crispness of her jackets always does look stellar).

it makes not a hint of sense to him why they'd been assigned together, proving never a day through without a pitter patter bickering, soft and subtle and all flavors of friendly now, yet tasked to teamwork alone should be the salted rim to that tequila bullet wound. both branch heads gone at once could prove no well despite it all. the unmeditated sync to their _no_ response hadn't left munakata's mission statement with any cross marks, only his even firmer order and taunting praise to how well their minds must meld to have pulled that off. neither could say in candor that they hate the other, only knowing all too well they've no place getting along for forty eight hours the consecutive with no mediator in between. and that magic middleman had met them at their exit from munakata's office, had read the statement and dropped his smile to blanche a certain moment that would be taken as comical in a comical circumstance. never would he ever think speak feel that same hatred, but...but well, he's hardly left either their sides in five years, and he'd heard in middle school ecology class that two dominant cats don't mix well within the same territory.

"watch your step."

and so it begins.

he'd like to close his eyes just to spite her, just the childhoodless child still within him that grits his molars at commands. the debris scattered beneath their current path warns him otherwise, and the slightest step upward is granted over a fallen water pipe. surrounding them rests shrapnel of a supposed ten story demolition. the definition betwixt dark asphalt ground and dreary afternoon sky is thin.

"status: pure shit." he isn't looking for the approval of her laughter (good thing, as her face matches still that concrete) in his quip, surveying a long glance about the desolation, the stink of flat iron burns. his fingers tighten subconsciously on the hacking gun handle. "something is...very wrong here."

lilac eyes sweep his way enough of a moment to express agreement. he watches her limber around the gauntlet of architecture innards. they've yet to come across a building still standing, making that 'thought to be vacant' all the more eerie in undertones. a dozen detonations in the dead of night could with ease turn it literal, and having witnessed so closely the powers of despair, he wouldn't call it unlikely. leather brushes a strand behind one ear. something about having kirigiri at his side, though all the way fought, sets his stomach soft, something about a calm mind to rely on should it be needed. something about comfort in her slow breaths and steady gait, one now pushing laggard to their next stop; it'd peaked over the horizon within the last several steps, standing now a grand pace past as they stop quiet with eyes clamoring.

"we'll go inside," she decides, irks him heavy because he would have said the same, just give him ten seconds, goddammit. "cautiously. i doubt we haven't been being watched this whole time."

he sneers her down. the gun lifts before himself. "i'm going in first."

"togami," says she so near to his end. not a single wind has passed them on their trek. her lips lay pursed in autumn. "let me."

nerve strikes him enough to scoff, doesn't care whether the hunters lining the building's walls swallow the echo. "right, as though they won't see a 5'6 porcelain doll and capture you for ransom instantly."

kirigiri takes no pointed offense nor shock, tilts her nose toward him to speak a wavelength evened, "i'm not the one who already has been."

his eyes pinch, because the memory's sour, because he was saving the life of a stupid scared little girl and got ahead of himself, alright, because kirigiri is witty and soft when it's a trio in her apartment on a friday, cooking hotcakes at eleven pm after a whirlwind craving sparked by the movie's diner scene, and she's in her dull cotton pullover with hands bare to the skillet handle, a cheek squishing to her shoulder and arms about her middle and he cuts into the idle hungry chatter to say he never knew a working bike to have three wheels, enough to cast coos into envy cooling kisses on his face, and the film's been paused so long it shuts itself off without a single remembrance to anything but the whipped cream spraying straight from nozzle to two stupid stupid mouths he delights in watching all his days. what the hell was he getting at? he can't afford distractions at such a high strung time, can't sign the check on her steps marching ahead of him now, jogs a stride of legs twice the length to catch her and then some. had he a rear view, a snarling would shatter it.

no door blocks the opening to the bottom floor. shoulder to wall, togami is careful (not cautious) in his footing, his motions, his lungs clamped at the stem. the soft soles of their twin tied boots do no harm for spotting, legs clad to match in black slacks the same pairing as do tides lapping. he need not beckon her forward beforehand to his own movements, but does so anyway, because he went in first and he'll make a remarkable father someday (if he isn't sooner kicked so hard in crotch by a vex bound point toed business heel to render him sterile). no enemies have shown themselves in a full cross of the ground floor lobby toward a questionable stair set. that hardly qualifies as safety, still, not with the wrist grasping darkness brought about by boards tacked over every window. he can hear her breathing from the proximity of their forms, and his brief glance to her is answered with a nod all the reassurance he didn't ask for fore his gusto claims the staircase.

dust scatters gladly on their approach to the next hall a story up. every swing of joints is agonizing for the stress alone; but they haven't the will to bear it, no fear in the bones of those who've danced with the devil herself, not the stone cold loners raised to be machines. kirigiri casts her gaze over each room they pass, each door ajar and each space clear of anything over its poor wood flooring and dingy dusty dirty desolation. he thanks all the gods he doesn't believe in that he's got hand sanitizer in his suv.

dual toned, they reach the bottom of another staircase, the last in total from the look of the outside. he steps upward, squinting in close nonplus once they're perched in the midst and near enough to see a dead end. an open entry to the third floor is traded rather for a crumbling layer of drywall. his palm runs over the popcorn scrapes, grimacing tightly to the blockade. it isn't but the second he makes to open his mouth that sound travels elsewhere.

equally, they flinch, fingers grasping his coat sleeve just so. the banging- sudden and jarring, but they deduce in fleeting moments that the source trails beyond the barrier. togami steels himself, guides the other behind an outstretched arm to command, "stay back."

pedaled a few steps reverse, he lifts now with his free hand the megaphone, strength in every digit as they flex about the trigger. togami byakuya, the stone cold bastard, the machine, the god, pulls it. electric blue glazes in a current into the wall, knocks it clean out from the center outward, showers them in benign bits of debris. once the smoke clears, he lifts his forearm shield from over his head to find the second has nothing behind it to guard.

"you could have kicked it in," kirigiri says from above him, lifting a step over the remaining drywall frame.

he stays paused another second, then trails her with a smirk blowing the blind steam from his gun.

another slamming alerts her index to find her lips, a juvenile bait she makes only in jest to him, he knows. they walk slow, creeping, to gravitate toward the source, louder with every meter forward. he works with a long skip to play the guiding force and lean himself flat to the nearest wall to the noise. she spares the theatrics to go for an immediate grasp of the doorknob before them, one that jitters with the pulse of fists on the second side. quick thinking would decide it's no threat, sounds more a captive begging peace, not an uncommon take within their line of work. but because just same is it frequent to whip a door open at the first sign of sadness, and more than several has he or the other had to grab up the naive little savior from a blade's quick lash. togami knows nothing can be trusted for face value, and kirigiri knows nothing can be trusted period, yet still her touch rivals the brass of the knob to pull it open. they hardly have time to finish a swallow.

it tumbles out as though the door were the last cling to life, the board beneath rose. it- ragged, desperate, gasping as a collar hooked cat from the surf. hardly does it last but half a second before the mess sweeps itself back toward the room's wall, raised knees hugged to chest, eyes quivering through strands of hair fallen. neither have the grace in them to sport any fantasy past protocol; address the captive in collected temper, _we're from the future foundation, we're here to help you, yadda yadda yadda,_ approach them only once you've got the clear they pose no threat. togami doesn't know how a middle aged woman, frail as a rail and quaking smart, could harm them a lick, not with the way she's cowering in on herself from their entrance, but perhaps that's just the melted butter his heart's been softened to through years of room temperature loving.

(maybe it's two hours past a lunch break they never had, but now's no time to think about food).

"we're from the future foundation," he steps forward to relay so untouched, all in a day's work, no matter the tax. "we're here to-"

and it's all in a day's work to find victims of the apocalypse around them, so cold so tattered, so he won't fall to his knees and curse the lords beneath them, but this newest victim has shifted just so at his words to look upward at him, deep brunette casting back from the face he's seen now for the first time. and he feels it, the patter of boots closer to him, the stare he meets with expressions twinning for their scrutiny of disbelief. they've both seen the woman now, low lit and worn yet all the same the same, and they've both seen the woman in photographs of a home lost, never forgotten, where she smiled and stunned the flash with such a photogenic model's waves that in no way has proved heredity (if togami's blurry, squinting, gaudy expressioned camera roll is any indication, yet he loves to scroll through despite it). they've seen her there, and they see her now, for the first time brought to a life they'd both long since thought ceased, always half cringing to listen on stories of her unrivaled baking, her hugs, her laughs.

a one time only deal- togami falls speechless.

aside him, kirigiri's chest is broad to tightness, and she says in her one note weave, "...naegi-san."

the woman appears to balk back, eyes shining a bright green fear. "you- you-" she wets her lips to cure that impossible aridity to her voice, aged a hundred years in the last five, shakes her head forth, back. "you- youyouyou- please-please, i...h-help me..."

all the sudden, responsibility kicks away stun. togami straightens, casts nearer to her. "that's what we're here for. come with us. don't waste time."

her eyes seem to widen, though offers nothing more than a crouch inward on herself again. he's close to frustration at the action, the idiocy, they're here to save her, just listen! but two branch leaders are sent out at once because, while neither know compassion to a t, one can try in the other's fist clenched tyranny.

"you can walk?" asks kirigiri, beckoning her upward by the flag of the fingers. "we have to go. you'll be alright."

tentative, stare unchanging, she accepts a gloved anchor to pull her upward, clutching herself at the middle as she takes to weak strung muscles. her dress looks as though it was once white, now only a mess of fabric broadcasting random rips of flesh marred in dirt. she stumbles at their side, both assuring silently that they take the lead though not enough to keep her unguarded a full rotation. togami, just the personal, cannot fathom even his own emotions for the moment, and cannot fathom fathoming naegi's in a next hour.

at their exit to the middle floor once more, a hazard makes to work her down the eeking steps on bruise balled dress flats. hardly does her head reach his shoulder. that bit, he takes with a thump in the chest, does fit into the punnett square. but it's nary the time for that, either, especially not with the mirror of men in their path sans a warning.

between them, each an inner arm presses outward to an x over their lost lamb's front, togami going on instinct to raise the hacking gun toward them. his fire waits for the first move, one that dares not come in the face of artillery poised as so. the men, about six or so- robust, suited, identical. not recognizable or distinguishable, yet humans all the same who've fallen without meaning for an imperialist's bubblegum curls and store brand double d's. naegi would say it isn't their fault, naegi would stand between the megaphone's muzzle and the bandit bunch. his enamel sizzles.

"move," he orders the adversaries, aiming the weapon to the side. "and make it quick."

altogether, they exchange glances. then, the men charge forward.

togami hopes the one closest to him has phenomenal dental coverage, because he's rather certain such a harsh crack of an elbow to the jaw as he's just delivered can do the teeth no good.

he falls to his ass, but there's not a moment for celebration, not with the backup dancers all leaping for him now; a fist raises to crash land into his quick as a whip palm, using his own freed knuckle clench to uppercut him into a close bite of the tongue loose. this one delivers the same pathetic crumpling moans. satisfactory, togami thinks, swiveling his arm up at the shoulder to aim the hacking gun forward again. something catches him a moment, the form of kirigiri kyouko's badass bitchery in swinging a leg up to sprain half a ribcage, and he'll take her out for drinks later, but right now- "take her, and get out of here! _now!_ "

attention is caught in his gasp frontways to the megaphone slapped from his hold. he won't let sainthood be his undoing again, not on the golden togami name that grips the wrists closing him in to a crave of veins popped. the captive hollers agony to those arms being twisted so, though his silence after a boot to the face is far more melodious.

while he lay in candied paralysis, there's more to handle, two injured not yet down for the count and revving to take him on again. togami byakuya fears no man but his own glorious self, and he'll be damned the day he lets a sorry bastard try to intimidate him. whilst they approach, he adjusts the cuffs to his dress shirt, pairs them neatly with a grin and a fat swing of the fist. the bodies are piling just the way he likes after some hour long minutes. his breath runs ragged and he can just barely recall what the hell they'd come here for, and this one's gotten a nice rush into his middle to challenge his lungs even further; blood drips from the split of his bottom lip's plush. he'll be damned, he'll be damned to hell and back.

"togami!" and if she ever again ends with an exclamation mark, that split lip will tear him clean down the center. kirigiri's got her boot on a rattling skull when he looks her way, their precious cargo trembling behind her. that's it. that's why they're here and why they do what they do and why he gets up at five:thirty seven days a week to beg the percolator faster. a challenge is something he'll never leave unfinished (and finished means always victorious), but the way those eyes pin him like clover field yokai- he hasn't time for the winner's ceremony, dives his lean body around the ambush to meet his partner in crime stomping. she tosses the hacking gun back where it belongs. he catches it without missing a beat in their immediate sprint for the ground floor.

it isn't that they didn't expect a second army of despairs to hurricane after them once they got there, it's that they've learned to be more hopeful over the years and thought, maybe they're on a smoke break. no such kiss to the knuckles. but what's the need for an ass kicking when they've got momentum? kirigiri's a meter ahead, breaking through the sudden rush of suited fools to clear their path. behind him, togami responds to a stumble with a lift of the freed captive beneath an arm, never pauses his triathlon star timing.

hot on his ass- there's two of them, growling snarling messes grappling for his skin. his cargo shouts a cry to a zombie like grip on her arm. surely a megaphone smashed to temple bone doesn't feel like a christmas morning ribbon tug, he'd think, proven once they're sole in their chase onward. between it all, he notices no blur of sprinting lavender ahead of him any longer, quick to imagine her flesh being clawed from the tendons a glance back, though it is only he who faces the danger of heart halt when his blind surge in doubled speed meets the curve of his very own car torn before him. she needn't tell him, _get in_ , because he's already got a foot up on the ledge and she'd make a terrible mother someday, but she's content with her cat's company the rest of her days, anyway.

the engine does not stop its scrape forward even before he's got the door slammed shut, the woman in his hold shoved toward the back row seats. with a grunting heave he cracks the gun into the face of a close by pursuer through the window. kirigiri floors it harder.

"don't fuck up my car," is togami's parting wisdom as he takes to standing, works himself through that same window like a partygoer in the limo's back. carpenter ants are the swarm of black coats tailing them. though it's a malice he cares no longer for, he places the safety of his passengers acres above any brainwashed cretin. the gun aims, trains, swallows the press of his index finger to unleash a blinding fuchsia ray.

togami's gawking before the beam even makes contact.

he pulls the hacking gun back to his chest, checks the setting wheel for confirmation he doesn't need; of course it's set to _dance_ , because there's a whole crowd of backstreet boys growing smaller and smaller with their mad rush off. half a mile past, he's still hanging out the window peering after the bopping and disco hustles, until the whole city of dead dreams has faded off the horizon. silence.

slicing eyes cast in the rear view. he's cajoled back into the vehicle by her blunt tempting, "togami."

" _i know_ ," says he hard in his seat back righted, lapels in the fists. he gestures next wildly with those same hands splayed to the megaphone tossed to the dashboard. "i presume it altered the setting when it hit the ground. why the hell that's even an option, i'll never know."

a scoff ends his statement to an eye roll, glancing back behind them another paranoid flit that finds instead their business unfinished in an entirely new sector. he turns in his spot to face the backseat.

she's still shaking.

"...you're safe," togami tells her, awkward salt on a tongue that's never known healing. he wonders if preferred comfort methods are genetic, though he cannot see himself hushing her in quiet silk baritone, pulled to the chest and palm running the back. he'd jump at the chance to be consciously castrated before playing that out on the warmth of any other besides his one and his only. his one. that's what this is about.  
  
the woman seems to absorb his words, though she's cowering still in on herself. the car hits a bump and he watches her jostle and _eep!_ before firing a glare off at the driver. kirigiri puckers an air kiss his way.

that's the pancakes at eleven pm kirigiri he'll gag on saying he loves, but he's suddenly not feeling so business casual in the wake of such intensity. neither have the smarts aside book enough to know what next to approach. it's easiest when they've brushed the rubble off clueless grade schoolers, because they've always got a mouthful to say on their own, though explaining where mommy and daddy are is never the most fun. but mommy's here now, in the backseat of his suv for a long, long hour's drive back to headquarters. she's here, and to their mild surprise, she's got the volition to prowl. "you...you kn-know who i am?"

impressive. togami wouldn't have recalled such a minute detail as her name being said after all that's tackled them (metaphorically and otherwise). he leans toward the center console and pumps a serving of sanitizer into his palm.

"we recognized you from photographs." kirigiri's voice is a layer below its usual softness, same force in each syllable yet...struggling. togami notes the bits of hot across her tautened cheekbones. his lips purse to take charge.

from his breast pocket he pulls a square of sleek black, fiddles with the screen a moment before setting it to his face, knots riddling his insides so uncouthly. it's nine taps of the fingers before the dial tone cuts to a greeting (one of a mouth stuffed, he can tell blatantly, and nearly tells him off in all the kindest teasing for placing his phone call beneath a doughnut in priority).

there's a dozen questions spewed toward him after a swallow, which he'd expected, and which he answers none of in place to tell the other end, "we've...had an unforeseen issue. we're coming back ea- yes, i'm fine. we- yes, makoto, kirigiri is fine, too." to his slip, he's glancing toward the middle mirror where it takes a moment, but it's there, that sudden shimmer casting through the fat of her eyes, and she's leaning forward between the two front seats breathing a ruin. "everything is fine," he goes on, pulling into personal space a length. "we'll report our findings once we're back at hq. i'll see you soon. ...i love you, too." the mumble trails from his teeth, daring not to meet any gaze. "goodbye."

"makoto," he hears before he's even tucked the phone fully away again. togami shifts to look her straight on, already being stared at in such desperation. "m-makoto...my-my son? my son is alive?"

the wet has already begun to flirt in her eyes, and good lord is he ever glad she hasn't skipped to a wrong conclusion he's to shoot down. the name's horridly common. but- he looks to the third, who glances sidelong and nothing more, leaves him in no man's land for a plead of shy heart.

"...yes," he affirms, watches the woman tuck her hands over her face and bawl a fresh note. a shuddering breath knocks her back in her seat when he continues, "komaru is as well."

overwhelming is the emotion she radiates alone. togami bears no smiling, merely touches his lenses up and allows her several minutes to process it all before attempting to further. "we're unsure of the whereabouts of your husband, however."

suddenly, the weeping is taken from her, straightens from her bend inward and sniffs, blinks those thousand year greens to a frown that takes her now. "th-they...they...they killed him," sets the carpool mood awfully low. "tatsuya...they killed him, right-right in front of me."

togami's scowling is tight and soft. he bows his head one gentlemanly moment, then is back on task in a swiftness that defies sympathy. "who did this to you? every detail you can provide us is crucial."

through her nose goes a stiff breath, fidgeting with the ring on her left hand as she stews in memory. the tattered curls of her hair shift enough in the car's waves to view a screaming red claw mark down one shoulder. togami is quick to cease his staring.

"it was...it was so long ago," she tries. her face pinches in emotion enough to halt her speech momentarily, but she wills herself the follow up. "these people...they broke into our home. they-they looked like normal teenagers, but they couldn't have been, not after all i've witnessed. i'll never f-forget their faces as they ripped my daughter away from me. i'll never forgot that horror."

all knowing, the two up front share a look. and silently the same, neither doubt he still would have wanted to save all sixteen of them even if he'd known.

togami's throat takes a sudden begging to loosen his tie's knot.

"there was a whole group of them, five or six. two of them took tatsuya and i away- you know, i'm not one to hold grudges, but if i ever saw them on the street..." she trails off, shakes her head to repent. "they took us to a building. a _room_. we stayed there for-for _years_. other people came in and out over time. but..." she pauses here, clenches her lids and breathes deeply. "but after a while, they-this group of _children_ , they said, _you're the parents of the one who killed despair_. i-i still don't know what it means, but they killed my husband and left me to...to die there- i thought, but they brought me food everyday and things i needed, so i suppose the goal was for me to live and just... _suffer_."

it's harder to stomach than the average captive's sob story. togami nods her onward. kirigiri watches her in the mirror as they cruise along an overpass.

she bites the raw of her lip. "it wasn't until a few days ago that that treatment stopped. they opened the door one morning, the first time in years, _years_. and they pulled me up on my feet and- and, oh, i thought i was saved. i thought it was all over. but instead...instead i was tossed in that room you found me in now...and no one checked on me since then. if you two hadn't come when you did..." there isn't a need to finish it solidly. he knows. she knows. a collective breath is lost to hush, and she murmurs idle on, "the hardest part of it all was not knowing where my children were...if s-something had happened to them...oh-"

tears flood her again, palms to face and chest hollow. togami can't find a use in grieving over a what if, not when the what _is_ requires so much already. regardless, he allows her the reverence, waits for her to calm ever slight before attempting it forced faster. "they're both perfectly fine. some mental scarring, though that's commonplace in the world we live in." his look is firm. "they're healthy. on occasion, one of them will even say something halfway intelligent."

"they're getting a little chubby, but we love them anyway," kirigiri chimes in beneath her breath, and where togami represses the smirk at both their wits, the proud mother in the back blares her beam full force.

"thank you...for all of this, thank you." it fades to a small shining smile, hand over the heart as she leans to a lax. "my name is megumi. i'm sorry, i suppose i should have said that sooner, ah." something close to a giggle is on her lips. togami guesses it's the liberation high. "i don't know how i can _ever_ repay you both for saving me, and for caring for my children. i can't thank you enough."

the ocean laps quietly aside the car's groove. overhead, the sky is a pink mango fade. he admires the tides in his exhausted-at-three-pm eyes, lays his heavy-from-the-hell heart to gentle rushes, rests his chin to his shouldn't-have-put-sanitizer-on-cut-up-post-fight-hands-goddamnit-this-stings palm.

"rest for now," he replies. "you can make us oatmeal cookies later."

the air stalls to a lull, not stagnancy, relaxation, much needed. they pick up conversation again in time, at her prompting to where they come from and how they all know each other, and he's sure she's all giddy ears to hear about the prestige of the future foundation as she sips off a water bottle tossed behind with an order of _drink slowly_. togami is pleased to gab about his acting head position, to cut off kirigiri as she just _must_ point out her own superior one, about naegi's place within their branch and branded as the 'reckless' type by their overheads. she laughs another light time, something in it oh so knowing, and he goes on with komaru's valiance in towa city, her unsightly choice for a new best friend, her current life with her brother in their messy little two bedroom apartment. yes, they still do bicker like idiots over who gets the prize in the cereal box. yes, she is still a head taller than him to his great chagrin. megumi never stops smiling all the while. genes.

it's another ten minutes before boots are on pavement and kirigiri's tossing his keys over the hood. he catches them just as she goes to guide their passenger out, squinting and shirking at the afternoon light. togami rests his suit jacket over her shoulders and takes for the front entrance with a single nod.

it's another ten _seconds_ before he's ambushed; this time, in all the sweetest ways. "byakuya!"

empty- the front lobby hosts the two of them sole, where their approach meets in the center, stabs an arrow through naegi's grin as he takes on the same look as gazing over a bird's wounded wing. his fingers come up to hold togami's jaw, not the slightest flinch from the recipient who craves this gentle touch as if addicted. "what happened to you, sweetheart? you're all banged up..."

he allows his thumb's pad to run across the cut on his lip despite the sting. "the _unforeseen issue_ i mentioned may have consisted of a half dozen punches to the face." to the other's concerned astonishment is remedied soon by his front. "i handled it. kirigiri and i are both alright, stop worrying. for now...i'll call the mission a success."

naegi nods to it, quickly pulls the businessman hat back off to wrap his arms around the other's middle, face pressed to chest and closeness inhaled. togami revels in it while it lasts, though knows he's more to take care of aside from running his fingers through baby soft brunette. "listen, makoto."

promoted, he raises to prop his chin to chest rather, peering up toward him in question. togami parts his mouth, and that's as far as he gets.

"...makoto."

he stiffens to the new voice behind them, tight to see the baseballs that replace his gaze. the pull away from him is gradual, steps back to simmer in a peek around him, forgets to blink forgets to breathe forgets to forget.

"muh..." starts he, the room around them a stadium for the weak of his knees. "m-mom?"

togami intakes the layout; kirigiri's placed to the sidelines a foot off, cleared the way for reunion as he himself mimics. that draws his attention back upon it whole. megumi stands closer toward the door's arch, arms through the jacket sleeves to render her twice the infinitesimal being. she dares a few patters of feet toward the deer in a thousand headlights, simper to contrast his blank pounding incredulity, until it is that his tie is whipping behind the speed of his sprint, and if he weighed more than a hundred pounds soaking wet she'd have been taken down by how ferocious it is that he barrels in to wrap himself about her.

"makoto," she repeats within the squeeze into his neck's crook. "makoto, oh, makoto makoto _makoto_."

from his place a ways off, togami hears the shattering sob in response, and vaguely worries for the sanctity of his jacket. no matter- they go a slow ways to crumpling on either set of knees, and naegi's bawling his stupid beautiful eyes out as he clutches his mother as one would dear life. the tight of his own jaw matches a newfound throbbing behind the ribs.

"i think i'd make out with you if it meant i could have tonkatsu right now," falls from the corner of kirigiri's mouth for him alone. tension folds in curtains around his spreading smirk to murmur back, "start undoing your top, i haven't stopped thinking about onion rings since noon.

when next he's focused again on what feels not their right, there's hands under either side of naegi's drippy face, an oceanside smile reflecting in his own. "oh, my baby...you're a man! how did that happen so fast?!"

touch finds either of her wrists. naegi laughs, sniffs, pinches his lids. "i c-can't believe you're here, mom. i missed you- i missed you so much." her hand squishes his cheek, stretches his smile another inch before he takes to wiping beneath the eyes. "i knew you were alive, komaru did, too. we never stopped looking for you and dad."

a sourness bites into the atmosphere around them, one the speaker himself can sense, though for a reason all the most naive. grasp forward, he guides the both of them to standing, holds his mother's hands and blasts out an expression of the stars he so often resembles. "we'll find him, too. everything will be okay again. we're rebuilding the world, mom- its amazing!"

togami lifts a finger from the cross of his arms to rest it before his mouth. megumi breathes in, and pats her son on the knuckles without word.

his surge of rose color blends into a lift of the brows to turn his attention sidelong. "oh, mom, these are- they're the ones who rescued you. they're part of our family, really." his hand is flat in a splay toward, "kirigiri. my best friend in the entire world. she's great, i don't think i'd even know how to put my pants on if it weren't for her, heh."

"you wouldn't. i've seen it." her response makes the lot of them grin, though togami's busied in prep work; he laxes one arm to rest at his side, one hand to the hip and switches them twice over before they're on him now and it's too late for first impression perfection. "and this is togami...um, my, uh...eheheh..."

"my son in law, hm?" megumi tempts in a smirking, and the one beside her is lost behind a blanket of red across the face.

his attempted wave off laugh off fuck off is thrown between, wherein togami can't help the smile himself as their trail goes onward, and naegi's palavering on the way he does for every good mood burst. "right, ahaha, oh- you have to meet hagakure and asahina, too. they're my other friends. and komaru's friend fu- oh! komaru! she's going to be _so_ so happy, we have to go see her! you can live with us, mom. i'll let you have my bed, the couch is fine. we have a super nice apartment, there's a coffee table and everything. oh, jeez, you're probably really hungry...i haven't gone grocery shopping in a while, ehehe, but there's leftover chicken karaage in the break room fridge, i couldn't finish it because asahina brought in doughnuts for everyone and i sorta ate three or four of them, _but_ -"

and the doors to the office swing. for the both of them, togami exhales.

he looks downward to the other. her eyes rest shut, arms over the chest, and she nods.

the long awaited placidity is sliced by a shove through those same doors that rockets them both into uprisen quick shock, drowns out at the sight of naegi's bright prism smiling their way. his walk toward them pauses close, and either of his arms lift to snare them both to the center.

"thank you," comes his whisper, tightens the hug that neither have yet reciprocated. "i love you guys so much. i want to hear all about your mission. let's go to dinner tonight, my treat."

in sync, they seem to pray their growling middles are unheard. a quick eternity passes before either melt in his rays, togami's mouth going to the crest of his head whilst kirigiri moves a palm up his back. a quick eternity is their hold on one another in a proverbial, and in the literal, it is naegi who retracts, weaves finger's through his love's and beckons the other in a wave. the pullstring on his back catches another tug, chattering away to both of them on their way into the office building again, where the missing two are greeted in raucous hollers from their most ebullient colleagues. togami deflects a bear hug in a sneer, allows kirigiri to take the brunt of the yasuhiro special. a glance toward the close by shows asahina's hands stuffed with treats and offering them outwards toward their newest guest, babbling about an empty stomach being the devil's work. megumi's laughing, if only to be polite, he thinks, and she's got an arm around her sweet son's waist once he works his way through the chaos to stand beside her. it's loud, it's messy, it's everything he loathes, and the noise will of course alert a higher up within minutes to chastise them all and order the found captive through screening immediately, but...but it's...alright, he would say. everything will be okay again, it's true.

from the pace away she'd managed, there's a look placed neatly upon him, a silver spoon forged in the wake of burn. "good work today."

togami tilts his head high. "i know."

muted around them is life, and in the present of their presence, kirigiri kicks up a chortling at him.

it certainly is amazing.


End file.
